A former worker at an abortion clinic now faces charges after helping a friend to give birth and then leaving the baby to die.
Jessica Carpenter and Rachel Lowe of Norfolk, Virginia are being charged with felonies for producing a miscarriage. The 27-year-old Rachel Lowe, a former employee at Tidewater Women’s Health Clinic, a Norfolk abortion facility, is accused of providing 20-year-old Carpenter with a concoction of health store herbs that would cause an abortion.
The baby was six months along at the time of the abortion.
The state classifies self-induced abortions a Class 4 felony that carries a 2-10 year prison sentence and up to $100,000 in fines.
From a report on what happened:
Lea Smith, one of their mutual friends, told WTKR-TV that she heard them discussing an induced miscarriage. She contacted police when the infant died after being born prematurely.
Tidewater Women’s Clinic owner Dr. David Peters told the station that Lowe was never involved in any medical procedures, insisting that she was hired to do clerical work and occasionally comfort nervous patients.
He added that inducing a miscarriage with herbal supplements, a practice that goes back hundreds of years, is extremely dangerous and could have killed Carpenter. Peters also noted that the survival rate for babies born after just six months of gestation is “at best 50 percent, maybe 60 percent.” WTKR-TV did not obtain the baby’s autopsy results, and the two accused women refused to comment.
